The rolling hills and stormy clouds along the way made for a great background, and with some classic rock playing through the Blaupunkt system on the Skoda Yeti, the drive couldn’t get any better than this. It was so enjoyable that we didn’t realise the pace at which we were covering the kilometres. We stopped only for two things: deserted side roads to shoot on and er, restrooms. Other than that, we pushed on till well into the afternoon when finally, all that we had eaten in the morning seemed to just vanish and hunger pangs were felt. Lunch came late but we got some decent food and after our own little refuelling stop, we were on our way.

We did a post-lunch check on the cars to make sure everything was in order and after everything was given a once-over, we set the GPS navigation towards Bengaluru and were off again. Along the way, we hit some sections of road that were still being paved and the diversions we took kicked up a lot of dust. The Bosch cabin air filters ensured that none of that made its way into the cabin, a part you wouldn’t normally notice until it’s absent in a car.

Mother Nature planned a little more rain for us as we neared Bengaluru. That, combined with the increased traffic because of the proximity to the city, meant we needed another pit-stop before the final stretch into the city.

Some coffee and snacks later, we were off again and this time, we were in for a bad time. We chose the worst time to enter Bengaluru; rush hour right before a weekend, and we crawled through all that traffic on the way to our hotel on the other side of town. A quick dinner and we were ready to sleep in anticipation of exploring this city the next day...